Lakers News: Luke Walton Calls On Julius Randle To Be Team’s Enforcer

The Los Angeles Lakers suffered yet another blowout loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder on Wednesday, just days after a disappointing showing against the Memphis Grizzlies.

The Lakers struggled on both ends and yielded a whopping 114 points to a surging Thunder team. As a whole, L.A. collected just 30 rebounds on the night, compared to the Oklahoma City’s team total of 54. The Lakers noticeably lacked their usual grittiness and toughness on the floor.

In just 23 minutes of action, Julius Randle led the way offensively for Los Angeles with 16 points. Though, all of his eight baskets came in the first half. Moreover, Randle collected just one rebound and committed three turnovers during the matchup.

After the game, head coach Luke Walton praised Randle’s play on offense but opined that he needed to be more physical on defense, via Spectrum SportsNet:

“Julius, he was good. Obviously, with Julius, I’ve said it the all year, my expectations for him are high. One of the these I challenge him to do is, we have a young team, and he’s our physical presence. He’s our guy that needs to bully other teams. He did that offensively tonight. Defensively, he, not just he, but we got pushed around. We need him to not necessarily be our tough guy, but our guy when we’re getting pushed around, pushes back a little bit.”